president putin which includes americans adopting russian children. russian public opinion but the authorities say it's aimed at the adoption system. school shooting in connecticut as. we look at why many including more. want to leave in the near future.

it's a pleasure to have you with us here today. live in moscow where it's now just after seven pm that the russian president president putin has signed off on a bill aimed at u.s. citizens accused of abusing the human rights of russians includes a ban on americans adopting russian children and the restrictions came about after washington travel and financial sanctions against russian officials. are involved in a rights violations of the story. oh earlier the president said he saw no reason why the bill shouldn't be passed and signed it on the next day after the final draft got into his office now starting from the first of january american citizens suspected off while ations of the rights of the russian citizens will be banned

from entering russia the bill also introduces financial sanctions and restrictions on n.g.o.s and commercial organizations with foreign sponsors and also the article which has been more stopped about the ban for all americans to adopt russian children for the past few weeks russian society and even the political elite have been split over the issue and there have been many cases of abuse of russian children and sometimes even deaths after they're brought to the united states and russian president has been saying that this bill is not aimed against people or children but it's aimed against the american system due to a lack of a proper legal reaction from american authorities to these cases including the a lack of heavy jail sentences and other problem is that russian officials are often not even able to monitor what happens to russian children after they're brought to the u.s. one of the reasons behind so much debate around the ban is also that many people are concerned with the state of orphanages in russia and along with signing this

bill the president also releasing the gui aimed at improving the lives of orphans in the country lawmakers from the beginning have been saying that this is a response to the magnitsky act bans passed recently by american lawmakers city game was a russian war of words for foreign investment funds he was suspected of money laundering but died in prison before a court could make a decision on his case is seen by many in the west especially united states as a victim of various human rights violations and the magnitsky act basically gives the green light for sanctioning a russian official suspected in the us of being connected with human rights violations in moscow by me. officials it's seen as another entity a russian law because it's really not clear on what grounds this black list of names is that is being put together and also we know that some of the names are going to be classified all together. and as the investigation continues into the

death of so to get magnitsky in prison a moscow court has acquitted or jailed doctor of negligence leading to loss of life earlier russia's presidential council on human rights concluded that magnitsky had been severely beaten and denied medical treatment while he was held in prison however the judge said she found no evidence that the doctor's actions caused her lawyers death and i can excuse family has promised to appeal the ruling. now critics of the new adoption say it harms russians orphans chances of a better future but a former director of the american adoption congress told us here at r.t. that tracking how russian children are being treated in america is all but impossible. a lot of the cases have gotten very very light sentences for the caretakers whether for store or adoptive of russian children here in the united states but we certainly have no idea how many children are enduring abuses

surviving abuses of all kinds but children that died at the hands of their adoptive parents were tortured in some horrendous ways they were sexually abused they were burnt they were starved they were caged ever any conceivable kind of torture one human being could inflict on another was done to these children so these were the parents that were caught and prosecuted nineteen how many more there is there is absolutely no way of knowing the united states has no system of follow up on adoptions once an adoption is finalized the child is considered as if born to that family and this is the gun sales have skyrocketed in the u.s. it's off to barack obama urged a ban on some firearms in the wake of the sunday hook school massacre so he's going

to explains that was ultimately backfired on the american president about two weeks ago actually on this particular wall here. a r.'s four zero zero zero for rows across. with everything going on in politics right now with the possible ban and everything everyone is living in. purchasing right away gun stores all across the u.s. are reporting record sales. just two weeks after the tragic shooting at the elementary school in newtown americans are scrambling to buy the same type of weapon that adam lanza used in the connecticut shooting plus high capacity magazines and a lot of them panic buying trigger it out of fear that the white house is out to ban the weapons but this time the words need to lead to action no eight ar fifteen for this customer all sold out at the store while prices on line have gone through the roof we're going for

a thousand fifteen hundred dollars to twenty five hundred three thousand dollars even in some cases it's just the most amazing gun buying spree i've ever seen so many gun retailers now quite cynically refer to the administration's ban talking as the obama gun stimulus that's how good it's been for their business so how do you go from a president with a tough gun control agenda to someone gun dealers call the greatest gun salesman in america the manufacturers of semi-automatic rifles report that their market has grown thirty percent over the last four years states like north carolina iowa you have seen a one hundred percent increase in gun sales over the same period in the wake of the tragedy in newtown one of the country's biggest ammunition suppliers said they sold more than three years worth of magazines in just three days. although president obama himself has so far failed to act on his pledge to ban assault weapons his words have certainly provoked action just not the type you may have wanted or

someone they say is against. going to great job for us. maybe we should be a third term in order to sell even more weapons many dealers hype up gone apocalypse scenario so the band they're going to. start. but many of them don't actually see any drastic changes happening any time soon after all any significant gun control measures an update in the past ultimately clashed with the second amendment of the constitution and were subsequently scrapped. and in the meantime i want a group in utah has come up with their own unique way to prevent more shootings more guns to schools but this time giving them to teachers so.

now it's ten minutes past the hour here in moscow this is r.t. iran's holding a fresh round of naval drills in the strait of hormuz that's one of the world's busiest oil and gas shipping routes and the six day war games come as the west systematically builds up pressure on iran over its nuclear program and its speculations of a military confrontation a bit earlier i spoke to professor mohammad marandi from the university of tehran

and he explained why iranians don't think that an attack is possible any time soon . in the sense that western countries are brutal and civilized enough to carry out an attack and i think that that's clear to run into the fact that western countries are imposing sanctions and embargo on iran they're trying to prevent iran from even importing and exporting medicine and food stuff by blocking the central bank and there are shortages of some medicines right now in iran and people have died so the fact that western countries are willing to kill ordinary people and to make people suffer i think makes it clear that. the carrying out an attack on iran is something that they would contemplate if they could but i think on the other hand the iranians.

cells and i think that it has been a took deterrent to war so the i think in general the iranians feel that a military assault on iran aggression would be highly unlikely. well still ahead for you this hour here on the program washington's financial stability it's right on the edge of that is the united states moves closer to the fiscal cliff congress and the president still struggling to find common ground. dives deeper into conflicts we take a look at the key developments in the civil war over the last year that will be on our to recall to stay with us for that that's coming up well in about the next twelve or so minutes. growing a number of wealthy britons plan to wave bye bye to the u.k. over the next two years and move their lives and money elsewhere more than a fifth of the country's millionaires are considering emigrating as according to

a recent survey by lloyds international bank the explanation here from. blame the dismal weather that's reportedly the overwhelming reason for why one in five british million as a considering upping sticks and leaving the country now those reasons are followed closely by the high rate of crime in the u.k. and antisocial behavior and then another reason why they might want to leave is the high cost of living here in the u.k. and only in fourth place to my why they might might want to leave is the high rate of personal taxation now where are they going well top of the list of destinations is france it's nearby and it's warmer weather and same goes for spain which is the other place where they're all thinking of flocking to followed by the usa now we didn't manage to track down any million as but we hit the streets of london to talk to the ordinary londoners to ask whether they were considering opting sticks and

leaving as well and it looks like most of them agree with the millionaires so let's take a listen to what they told us you consider leaving the u.k. . one reason that i climb up the second the dark. would you consider leaving the u.k. and leaving somewhere else i'm going to do really what are the reasons my wife. my children but also the expense here looks like the middle class professionals are the ones who are actually packing their bags and leaving a recent report by the home office said that more and more middle class we professionals are actually packing their bags and opting to continue that careers elsewhere and for them the main reason is the high rate of personal taxation so it's the millionaires are the ones that don't like the rain then is the middle class professionals the senior managers the academics the scientists that are actually continuing their careers abroad and

a lot of business leaders are saying that if the high rate of personal taxation isn't cut it's going to lead to a brain drain for the u.k. in the future so something that's very worrying for politicians to consider here. we will be back with more news after a very short break. if you're from my generation or younger and you were born into the one percent that i have a lot of college debt i sure do you know the deal used to be that you paid a significant amount for education but in turn that gave you a much higher salary later but now the system works in reverse many young americans studied very hard to not make any money at all around nine percent of americans with student loans have defaulted and at least nine but maybe up to eighteen

percent are ninety days late with their payments given the situation the people at u.c. berkeley were nice enough to give away a million dollars in scholarships for everyone everyone that's an illegal immigrant yeah that's right if you're born in america then pay till you die but jump the border and enjoy the red carpet education treatment the people who will be getting the scholarships are mostly the children of illegal immigrants who spent many of their formative years in america and yeah i could see the logic that could be hard for them to get an education when their when they aren't citizens but they came into the country illegally it isn't taxpayers jobs to help them but wait berkeley is a private institution so i guess they can give out the money to whoever they want whenever they want however they want but berkeley management if you're watching this i would really appreciate if you chose some financial mercy to american citizens it isn't like they don't need the help but that's just my opinion.

good to have you with us here on r.t. today the u.s. is sliding ever closer to what has become known as the fiscal cliff with barack obama hosting another last minute emergency meeting today for weeks the republicans

and democrats have been trying to reach a deal on how to reduce the national deficit if they don't billions of dollars in tax spending cuts sort of magically come into effect on january the first activist and journalist says it's not the deadlock that bothers him but rather what has already been agreed upon. the real problem in my eyes is not the fact that they can't reach an agreement but rather that they have reached an agreement on many fundamental things the grievance they have reached is that neither of them are going to advocate to put more money in the hands of working people they have no problem whatsoever removing a trillion dollars or two trillion dollars from the economy and delivering it to the bankers they did that inside of twenty days back in two thousand and eight and again in two thousand and nine was very little discussion. everyone agrees on both sides of the aisle that sums sort of reduction in benefits from social security and

medicare is inevitable quote unquote well you know the rest of us don't believe that it's inevitable or even that it's necessary and certainly not the best that it's not desirable yet the agreement between the democrats and republicans on these fundamental issues is in my mind more important than their disagreement the posturing that they're doing for the media basically to try to blame each other for the you know going over the so-called cliff so that one you know while the world's economic recovery is held hostage by those talks in washington and the public's seething in europe's top economy we report on what's getting german so upset with a government that puts together a grand austerity plan of a design that's coming up in just a few. but now that russia is the syrian government to act on statements that it's ready to talk to opponents speaking to journalists foreign ministers put off outline the russian view on how the conflict should be resolved.

even though. we actively encourage the syrian leadership to make as concrete as possible is declared readiness for dialog with the opposition also asking when will the international community make up their minds that bashar assad should go and what would you respect to the international community is the syrian people who should make that decision on the international community should not be instigating one of the sides to continue bloodshed will set any preconditions they should instead encourage all the fighting of size to follow the geneva statements which set conditions for the syrians themselves getting all political ethnic and religious groups of the got to agree on which kind of state they want to live in and would. criticize the reluctance of syria's opposition group backed by the west to make any concessions in the civil standoff but russia is ready to hold talks with the group in the push for a diplomatic solution to the conflict and the syrian crisis has been dragging on

for nearly two years now with reports of fresh bloodshed on an almost daily basis while our correspondents got as close as they could to the real stories of violence tearing the country apart and that's what we're focusing on today in our series of the events that shaped twenty twelve. it became fairly apparent after a massive regional arab spring and in the wake of that the next type of a pro-democracy movement on a revolution or civil war was not what was happening in syria when you see some politicians there and the media circus is just. cracking down on people you think but what about the other guy on top of the politics and diplomacy that are facts that are simply too important to ignore. i remember i was

a training session of the syrian football team and the coach was very angry with how his players were practice and he was shouting he was swearing from time to time and then i move my head like this just like this and i saw two helicopters flying at very low altitude and firing were at each other. and close to us there was a group for rich syrians playing cards and smoking and living life as usual and just before that as me and my colleagues were live in the local t.v. station there was an almost lost a few blocks away most likely terror attack most likely people had been killed and what struck me was the coexistence of those two. realities. of death and the real sort of most interesting interaction for me with assad happened before and after the interview is obvious then that's often the case. i asked him if he's afraid. he said no. he said no i'm not afraid that's

a moment when the you believe the person or not and the only reason you know if he's right or wrong is internationally i think series becoming the next iraq it's a country that is totally december. and don't surprise us. like in the case of iraq. into syria. the outsiders on the guise of. our let's get into it now time for the r.t. world update will start with the former egyptian president hosni mubarak he's been readmitted to hospital after his health took a turn for the worse of a four year old was ordered by the state prosecutor. for three decades of life in prison for failing to protect protesters killed in the arab spring last year.

the current president mohamed morsi has launched an investigation into opposition leaders that he accuses of supporting efforts to depose. thousands of sunni muslims in iraq you've joined protests against the shia led government at the rally. public anger and a week of demonstrations that flared up after the arrest of a sunni finance minister. many sunni community dominated iraq until the fall of saddam hussein ten years ago accusing stories of. power. now the international monetary fund raising the alarm over germany's reporter austerity plans which are proposed to come into force after next year's elections the measures will apparently include raising the retirement age tax hikes and a welfare cuts now that could bring europe to a grinding halt according to the i.m.f. artie's prettier all of our reports. their top of the european tree but don't think

germans feel that they have nothing to grumble about v.f. un votes in the park to share measuring public mood by telephone and face to face through thousands of interviews we've got a pretty good idea of what the people are thinking stats boffins have been gauging the country's mood to come up with the biggest moans of the year from your average german at number five it's national debt it's better to give than to receive at this time of year but germans festive spirit ran out long ago over chancellor merkel being a little too generous and bailing out countries like greece especially when it's their money and for is climate change the mayan world ending prophecy may have turned out to be hocus pocus but germans remain seriously concerned about keeping mother earth ticking over for as long as possible number three is a very twenty first century problem getting ripped off online as we bank in shop on the web more than ever before the fear for germans is that someone else's netting

their details on their cash. poverty came in second towards the end of the year it was revealed that around a quarter of europeans are at risk of living below the breadline germans watch with despair at what's happening to the greeks in spanish images they struggle to shake from their minds but the biggest worry for germans in twenty twelve was rising prices cost so rocketing everywhere from food to fuel and next year looks set to get even more pricey germany is a world leader in using renewable energy and over the coming year it's the consumer who will be paying to keep it that way with a shocking fifty percent increase in the subsidy paid towards renewable energy sources so that's what troubled germans this year but what are their fears for the future but i'm concerned maybe to find a good job because i want to do something different trying to thirteen minutes on

sure what is happening in our economical crisis perhaps the euro is having another crisis but i actually love berlin that's why i want to stay here but if i can't find a job here so will have to try to get somewhere else i worry about everything job crisis everything is going down the hill that people are quite certain about job security that they just that yeah the contracts are not secure in our their firms our companies no longer have enough money and that people are just get fired. as with most situations in life when you ask people what their concerns are or what they want to see changed you do have to be prepared that their answers might not be exactly what you want to hear really one of the off the top promise was to legalize soft drugs i don't think they're launching soft forty's when you get insurance you

. should have split commissions. in two thousand and thirteen so what will germans be concerned about at the end of twenty thirteen even though they've less to worry about than most europeans it's unlikely that worries over spending it on other countries will disappear within twelve months. i see berlin. there is a continuing rift between russia and china on the one hand and a number of other countries including the u.s. over half of the world wide web should be governed proposals between moscow and beijing recently been rejected at a major un conference with critics accusing them of trying to impose on line censorship so r.t. asked russia's communications minister what moscow exactly is suggesting. nothing about censorship in those documents as well as there is nothing about censorship in

the film or of protecting children from child pornography to drugs and suicide in russia there's nothing about censorship probably those global. leaders which are making billions out of the internet economy they would prefer that the internet is just some kind of this. uncontrolled. development. information exchange. and you can watch either for that if you were russia's communications minister after the short break. was. the was. in the only glow of russia's no crew way from

civilization or any three hour helicopter train from the nearest village. so they stole one family have been living here for a long time in tents made of reindeer skins. so having said. lodging runs in a signal and minutes they also grew up in the but left it at the age of six and never returned they now live in the city in apartment building but still remember their regions was. i want a reason dancing teacher.